Content delivery networks (CDNs) have a geographically distributed network of points of presence (POPs) such that one is likely to be close to an end user. A request for content is matched to a nearby POP using routing, domain name service (DNS) diversion, redirection, Anycast and/or other techniques. An edge server in the POP generally serves the content from a cache of the edge server, a host within the CDN or an origin server depending on where the content is located. For content that is missing from the CDN, the request to the origin server can be costly in terms of quality of service (QoS). There remains a further need for improving the QoS associated with caching and delivery of content that is missing from the CDN.